That's what happens in a good horror movie: there are always metaphors of greater subjects like humanity and empathy and compassion. It's not about the action and scary moments: You really care about these characters because they're mirrors of our own reflections.

Every time you write a poem it’s apocalyptic. You’re revealing who you really are to yourself.

Loneliness is necessary for pure poetry. When someone intrudes into the poet's life (and any sudden personal contact, whether in the bed or in the heart, is an intrusion) the poet loses his or her balance for a moment, slips into being what he or she is, uses his or her poetry as one would use money or sympathy. The person who writes the poetry emerges, tentatively, like a hermit crab from a conch shell. The poet, for that instant, ceases to be a dead person.

It is only framed in space that beauty blooms; only in space are events, and objects and people unique and significant and therefore beautiful.

Not every song I write is ecstasy. And it can happen only one time. After that, when you sing the same melody and words, it's pleasure, but you don't get wiped out.

I think poetry is as old as language, and both come out of the same thing - an effort to try to express something that is inexpressible.